The town lies in the Nahegebiet (Nahe area), to the north of the namesake river, on the edge of the Naturpark Saar-Hunsrück. Birkenfeld lies roughly 13 km southwest of Idar-Oberstein and 12 km northwest of Baumholder.
The name Birkenfeld has its origin in an old German dialect, Old Frankish. It means something rather like "at the field with the birches" (it is directly cognate with the English words "birch field"). From the name's Frankish roots it can be inferred that today's town arose on a spot where there was quite a noticeable stand of birch trees sometime about the year AD 500, and that it was founded by Frankish-German farmers. To this day, there are a great number of birch trees in the bird conservation area at the clay quarries.
The first attestation of the name is spelled Bikenuelt (about 700) or Birkinvelt at the time when it had a documentary mention from Archbishop of TrierEgbert in 981. From this document comes knowledge that Saint Leudwinus (Archbishop of Trier 695-713) had donated to the St. Paulinus' Abbey in Trier the churches at Birkenfeld and Brombach.
Archaeological finds from the Iron Age, however, bear witness to quite heavy settlement even in the 8th century BC. In the 1st century BC, Roman legions overran the area, and for 400 years, it lay under Roman rule. This is known mainly from finds made in the town's immediate vicinity. The town that is now Birkenfeld lies right on a Roman road that served as a crosslink between two important military roads, namely the Metz-Mainz road to the south and the Trier-Bingen-Mainz road to the north, which was mentioned by Roman poet Ausonius in his Mosella in AD 350, and which also corresponds along some stretches with the Hunsrückhöhenstraße ("Hunsrück Heights Road", a scenic road across the Hunsrück built originally as a military road on Hermann Göring's orders). This crosslink, also known as the Bronzestraße ("Bronze Road"), linked the Glan, Nohen and the Moselle with each other. The Bronzestraße crossed the Nahe in Nohen (villa Aldena) and ran farther on, right through the Wasserschieder Wald, a state forest that still stands today on the town's outskirts, by way of Gollenberg, by Börfink and on towards Trier.
The Frankish settlement of Birkinvelt was held in the 13th century by the Counts of Sponheim. In 1223, the county was split into the "Front" and "Rear" Counties of Sponheim, and Birkenfeld passed to the latter, and was then held by the counts whose seat was at the Starkenburg (castle, now a ruin) near Trarbach. In 1293, Castle Birkenfeld had its first documentary mention. In 1332, Birkenfeld was granted town rights by Emperor Louis the Bavarian.
After the last Count of Sponheim died in 1437, the "Rear" County was inherited by the Margraves of Baden and the Counts of Veldenz. In 1584, a House of Wittelsbach sideline, in the person of Charles I, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld, resided in town. In this same year, expansion work also began on the castle to turn it into a princely residence in the Renaissance style. Exactly 140 years later, the last remnants of the Princely holding of court at Schloss Birkenfeld, as it had come to be known, were swept away. During the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), the town itself became in 1635 a theatre of war. Also that year, the Plague broke out in Birkenfeld and claimed 416 lives.
In 1776, under Margrave Karl Friedrich, Birkenfeld became seat of the Badish Oberamt. In this time, Birkenfeld blossomed. The town experienced an economic and cultural upswing. In 1779, for instance, the first "Higher School" was founded.
One night in February 1797, Johannes Bückler, known as Schinderhannes, burgled a cloth factory owned by the Brothers Stumm, who would later become coal and steel entrepreneurs on the Saar. A large part of the cloth stolen during this break-in Schinderhannes sold to a fence in Hundheim.[3]
Under Oldenburg rule, the new palatial castle, which is now the district administration's seat, was built in 1821. Not only was this built, but so were further buildings in the Governmental Quarter (Regierungsviertel), such as the infantry barracks (until 1963, a Gymnasium building, now the local office for the regulation of expenditures caused by stationed forces), which to this day characterize the town's appearance with their Classicist style from Oldenburg times.
On 1 April 1937, during the Nazi period, the Birkenfeld region was transferred to the Prussian Rhine Province; it was merged with the Restkreis (roughly "remnant district") of St. Wendel-Baumholder to form the Birkenfeld District. (The Kreis of St. Wendel-Baumholder was what had been the Principality of Lichtenberg until 1834, with the designation as a Restkreis having arisen after part of its territory, including St. Wendel itself, had been detached to form part of the Territory of the Saar Basin established under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles). After the Second World War, Birkenfeld belonged to the French Occupation Zone, and since 1946, it has been a district seat in Rhineland-Palatinate.
Birkenfeld has been a district seat since 1947 and forms together with 30 other municipalities a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality, called the Verbandsgemeinde of Birkenfeld.
Town council
The council is made up of 22 council members, who were elected by proportional representation at the municipal election held on 25 May 2014, and the honorary mayor as chairman.
The municipal election held on 25 May 2014 yielded the following results:[5]
BFL is Birkenfelder Freie Liste (“Birkenfeld Free List”).
BfB is Bürger für Birkenfeld (“Citizens for Birkenfeld”).
Mayors
Birkenfeld's mayor is Miroslaw Kowalski (CDU), re-elected in 2019.[1] His predecessor was Peter Nauert (CDU).[6] Peter Nauert was the first mayor ever to be elected by direct vote by the people of Birkenfeld. Both his predecessors, Manfred Dreier and Erich Mörsdorf, headed both the town and the Verbandsgemeinde of Birkenfeld at once.
Werner Käufer was the last professional mayor of the town of Birkenfeld. Indeed, he was acclaimed in the office in 1968 with a great majority for another 12 years, but by 1970, he had to give up his professional office when, under administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate, towns with fewer than 7,500 inhabitants were merged into Verbandsgemeinden.
The following have served as mayor of Birkenfeld:
Eugen Ruppenthal from 1923 to 1933 and from 1949 to 1953
Oswald Morenz from 1953 to 1961
Werner Käufer from 1961 to 1970
Erich Mörsdorf from 1971 to 1990
Manfred Dreier from 1990 to 2000, (SPD)
Peter Nauert from 2000 until 2014 (CDU)
Miroslaw Kowalski since 2014, (CDU)
Coat of arms
The town's arms might be described thus: Azure on a mount vert a birch tree with roots proper surmounted by an inescutcheon chequy gules and argent.
The main charge, the birch tree, is canting for the town's name (“birch” is Birke in German). The inescutcheon with the red and silver “chequy” pattern is the coat of arms formerly borne by the “Hinder” County of Sponheim, thus bearing witness to that time in the town's history. This composition is based on an old court seal from 1577.
The arms have been borne since 29 October 1923, when they were approved by the Ministry of the Interior at Oldenburg.
Town partnerships
Birkenfeld fosters partnerships with the following places:
In bygone days, the local Birkenfeld dialect was marked by the peculiarity of often replacing the sounds /d/ and /t/ – and sometimes /r/ as well – with /l/, a shift known as lambdacism. For example, a Birkenfelder in those days would have said Fulerlale where Standard High German would have Futterladen (“fodder shop”). A full-sentence example can be seen in a remark made by the Birkenfeld sexton “Fuchs Karl” to the church councillor and parish priest Haag: Jo, jo, Herr Kirjerot, pririje kann e jela, awa noch lang net loule!, or in Standard High German, Ja, ja, Herr Kirchenrat, predigen kann ein jeder, aber noch lange nicht läuten! (“Yes, yes, Mr. Church Councillor, preaching is something anyone can do, but bellringing, not for long”).
Lambdacism, though, long ago vanished from the Birkenfeld dialect, having given way to the other shift that is customary in Hunsrückisch: rhotacism.
Museums
The Landesmuseum des Vereins für Heimatkunde im Landkreis Birkenfeld (“State Museum of the Association for Local History in the Rural District of Birkenfeld”) offers an overview of 2,500 years of cultural history. The centrepiece is the interactively equipped Celtic experience exhibit Kelten, Kunst und Kult erleben (“Experience Celts, Art and Worship”). Here, through reconstructions, archaeological finds and replicas, these people's life is presented. Further exhibits deal with regional and territorial history of the Birkenfelder Land. Historical highlights among these exhibits are the High Middle Ages (13th to 15th centuries) and Oldenburg times in the Principality of Birkenfeld beginning in the early 19th century. Regularly changing exhibits deal with both historical and current themes.
Buildings
The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:[7]
Castle Birkenfeld’s gatehouseThe Old School on KirchplatzThe former youth hostel; the building was built on the castle grounds on foundations that formerly supported a rectory
Castle Birkenfeld, Burgstraße 17, 19, 28, 30, 32 (monumental zone) – preserved from the actual mediaevalcastle a round tower stump; from the Renaissance complex the gatehouse (no. 17); former Gasthaus zum ledigen Waidsack (inn, no. 28); youth hostel, 1926, architect Wilhelm Heilig, Darmstadt (no. 19)
Am Kirchplatz 2 – dwelling and commercial house, partly timber-frame, marked 1808, essentially older
Am Kirchplatz 5 – Evangelical and Catholic public school; nine-axis Baroque Revival building with mansard roof, 1911; characterizes square’s appearance
Am Kirchplatz 11 – dwelling and (former) commercial house; Renaissance Revival, 1881, characterizes square’s appearance
Am Rech 2 – so-called Backhaus (“Bakehouse”); small house, partly timber-frame, partly slated, 18th or early 19th century
An der Oelmühle 4 – former mill; quarrystone building, 1580; oilmill beginning in the 1770s, expansion and higher roof 1922; technical equipment
Auf dem Römer 5 – building with half-hipped roof, partly timber-frame (with wooden shingles), marked 1723
Auf dem Römer 6 – Baroque house, 18th century, essentially possibly older (1665?); characterizes street's and town's appearance
Auf dem Römer 9 – so-called Kußlersches Haus; corner house, marked 1590, partly with alterations from the 19th century; characterizes town's appearance
Bahnhofstraße 2 – Late Historicist house, hewn-stone plastered surfaces, bare timber framing, late 19th century
Bahnhofstraße 4 – corner house, partly timber-frame (slated), wooden gallery, late 18th or early 19th century; characterizes street's appearance
Brückener Straße 8 – house with saddle hipped roof, gabled dormer, 1920s/1930s
Friedrich-August-Straße 15 – Maler-Hugo-Zang-Haus; Neoclassical house, 1883 (see below)
Friedrich-August-Straße 17 – museum; in the forms of a Roman country house, 1910, architect Julius Groeschel, Munich
Across from Gollenberger Weg 3 – cast-iron fountain, late 19th century
Hauptstraße 9 – so-called Stadthaus (“Town House”); lavish Historicist corner building on a terrace, about 1900
Before Hauptstraße 11 – so-called Apothekerbrunnen (“Apothecary’s Fountain”); great cast-iron Gothic Revival complex, last fourth of the 19th century
Königsgasse 11 – dwarf house with barn under one roof, stable built on later and roof made higher
Between Rennweg 27 and 29 – warriors’ memorial for students from the Gymnasium Betuletia who fell in the First World War; cube upon a pedestal, steel-helmet relief, 1927, design by Wilhelm Heilig, Darmstadt
Across from Rennweg 30 – so-called Steinernes Kreuz (“Stone Cross”); Bildstock, tuff, 16th century, possibly Pre-Reformation
Saarstraße 19 – stately Quereinhaus (a combination residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street), latter half of the 19th century
Schadtengasse 2 – house with three-part window ensemble, marked 1838
Schlossallee 3 – five-axis wood-shingled house, 19th century; at the south gable parts of a nursery's sunken conservatory
Schlossallee 11 and 13 – Neues Schloss; Classicist group around open cour d'honneur, 1819–1821, architect J. W. L. Brofft, Frankfurt; main building with triaxial middle risalto, round behind, a balcony-porch; décor; one-floor side building with gabled entrance facility
Schlossallee 2, 3, 5, 9, 7, 11, 15, Schneewiesenstraße 22, 25, Friedrich-August-Straße 17, Regierungsviertel (“Governmental Quarter”; monumental zone) – in Oldenburg times, beginning in the early 19th century successively built buildings in the angle formed by Schneewiesenstraße and Friedrich-August-Straße including palatial castle (Schloss), barracks, prison, Government Building II, forester's office, museum and Gymnasium headmaster's house
Schneewiesenstraße 25 – third Oldenburg public authority building; Baroque Revival building with mansard roof, three-floor gabled risalto, 1912
Wasserschiederstraße 1 – corner house, partly slated, round behind, a sided gallery, hipped mansard roof, 1767, shop built in about 1900; characterizes town's appearance
Wasserschiederstraße 2/4 – double house on a high base, entrance gateway, marked 1791
Wasserschiederstraße 6 – former inn with brewery; sandstone quarrystone building, marked 1897
Wasserschiederstraße 7 – house, partly timber-frame (plastered), possibly from the early 19th century
Wasserschiederstraße 16 – great house with stable facilities, mid 19th century
Behind Wasserschiederstraße 47 – dovecote; small wooden building, cross-shaped roof with lantern, latter half of the 19th century
Wasserschiederstraße 49 – building with hipped roof, country house style, about 1910, roofed gallery to side building in the garden
Graveyard, Brückener Straße (monumental zone) – laid out in 1810; Gothic Revival chapel, about 1850; grave cross 1769, on pedestal about 1900; memorial to the fallen 1870/1871; two elegant family graves (Eduard and Richard Böcking's families); family Scherer's tomb, 1920s
Jewish graveyard, southeast of the town, on the road to Dambach (monumental zone) – 34 grave steles in situ, from 1898 and later
Maler-Zang-Haus
Right next to the Birkenfeld State Museum is the Maler-Zang-Haus (“Painter Zang House”). The house, built in 1883 in the bourgeois Classicist style, is where the painter Hugo Zang (1858–1946) once lived. In 2006, restoration work began in an effort to bring the house up to a standard worthy of monumental protection. Since 2008, the building has housed not only the Birkenfeld district folk high school but also seven gallery rooms for changing exhibitions of works by local and national artists.
Economy and infrastructure
Economy
The town's economy is characterized mainly by small and midsize businesses. Owing to Birkenfeld's history as a noble residence town and an administrative seat, no great industrial development ever took place here. The biggest employers, besides the administrative bodies, are thus a foundation and the Bundeswehr.
The German Red Cross’s (DRK) Elisabeth-Stiftung, a medical rehabilitation foundation, with its hospital, Berufsförderungswerk Birkenfeld (an institute for retraining workers whose condition precludes their return to former occupations), private vocational schools, measures for youth and senior citizens’ home is with more than 600 employees the town's biggest employer. Following the Elisabeth-Stiftung is the Bundeswehr (among other units, the 2nd Luftwaffe Division) with more than 500 military and civilian personnel. The Stefan-Morsch-Stiftung, a foundation for keeping data on potential bone marrow and stem cell donors, has its seat in Birkenfeld.
On the lands of the former railway station, a centre for starting up businesses (“BIG-Center”) was built in the 1990s.
Transport
Road
Birkenfeld has good road links to Bundesstraßen 41 (east-west, between Mainz and Saarbrücken) and 269 (between Bernkastel-Kues and Saarlouis), as well as to AutobahnA 62, which is the most important north–south link, running between Trier and Kaiserslautern. Furthermore, Bundesstraße 269 links to the Hunsrückhöhenstraße, and thereby to Frankfurt-Hahn Airport, which lies 50 km away by road. This journey is covered five times each day by a bus service.
Running outwards from Birkenfeld are five local loop trails for hiking with a total length through the region of more than 60 km. These are the Glockenweg (roughly 16 km), the Eulenweg (roughly 9 km), the Mausweg (roughly 12.5 km), the Mühlenweg (roughly 12.5 km) and the Rehweg (roughly 12.5 km). The long-distance Nahe-Höhenweg and the Sironaweg, which leads by many Celtic-Romanarchaeological finds, likewise run by Birkenfeld.
Cycle paths
The roughly 120 km-long Nahe-Radweg and the Rheinland-Pfalz-Route run right through the middle of town. They are supplemented by three local cycling circuits, R1, R2 and R3, with a total length of just under 80 km.
Förderschule Schwerpunkt Lernen (special school with focus on learning)
Enjoying more than local importance is the Elisabeth-Stiftung medical rehabilitation foundation, with its specific offers of qualifications to people with either physical or mental handicaps. Alumni come from all over Germany and even from neighbouring countries.
Among other academic offerings is the Volkshochschule Birkenfeld, a folk high school.
Authorities
Birkenfeld is the location of a number of authorities:
Birkenfeld has, among other sport and leisure facilities, a heated outdoor swimming pool, the Stadion am Berg (“Stadium at the Mountain”), several sport halls, a zoo, two libraries, a vocational library and the youth centre. In 2000, a skatepark was built at the youth centre, which in 2005 was expanded with a funbox, a quarter pipe, a ramp and an obstacle.
Notable residents
Sons and daughters of the town
The Trauernde at the Birkenfeld graveyard. The figure's design originates from Christian Warth.
Juana Bormann (1893–1945), German SS Nazi concentration camp prison guard executed for war crimes
Christian Warth (1836–1890), modeller and draughtsman, known for the figure “Trauernde” (“Mourning Woman”) made by Villeroy & Boch on a make-to-stock basis, which can be found in many graveyards[8]
Heyen, Franz-Josef und Zimmer, Theresia, „Wappenbuch des Landkreises Birkenfeld“, herausgegeben vom Landkreis Birkenfeld und der Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz, Band 6, Selbstverlag der Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz, Koblenz 1966
Brucker, Heinrich, „Birkenfelder Land Erinnerungen“, Geiger-Verlag, Birkenfeld 1990
Dr. Klar, Hugo, „Aufsätze zur Heimatkunde des Landkreises Birkenfeld“, Band II, Sonderheft 24, Hrsg. Verein für Heimatkunde im Landkreis Birkenfeld, Birkenfeld 1974
External links
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